


The One Where Spencer Reid Has an Eating Disorder

by sunshineboy1981



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Anorexia Nervosa, Aspergers, Autistic Spencer Reid, Bullying, Child Neglect, Childhood Trauma, Eating Disorders, Gen, Reid is a sad boy, Schizophrenia, Spencer Reid has Aspergers, Spencer Reid has an eating disorder, Spoilers, anorexic characters, trigger warnings in the tags
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-10
Updated: 2018-12-10
Packaged: 2019-09-12 05:37:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16867105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunshineboy1981/pseuds/sunshineboy1981
Summary: Spencer Reid was fifteen when his mother was fed up with his apparent habit."You've gotta drink less caffeine, Spencer," Diana said. "That's why you're so skinny."He just looked down and nodded.Sure, just the caffeine.





	The One Where Spencer Reid Has an Eating Disorder

**Author's Note:**

> This is mostly a personal vent and an example of me projecting onto any character I sort of relate to. Please don't read this if it's going to be a trigger!

Spencer Reid started drinking coffee at the age of eight. He was starting high school in a couple of days and nothing quite says post-pubescent like a mug of hot brewed beans drowning in sugar. It still somehow tasted like tar, but it was more for cosmetic appeal than anything, so he just kept it on his desk and sipped it when he could tolerate. 

Diana didn't notice much was off until he was ten though. She had never had a reason to worry about her boy before, he was smart and more than able to take care of himself, but seeing her son who was barely reaching double digits with a mug of caffeine was concerning. Diana had done a little bit of reading on coffee and, despite drinking it herself, wasn't sure about it. 

"Do you not get enough sleep, Spencer?" The boy jumped a little bit as she continued making herself breakfast. 

"No, I'm getting an average amount of sleep for a high school student, though most high-schoolers get an average of three and a half hours less of sleep than needed per night. I'm getting more than that, so yeah, I'm sleeping well." Diana smiled at Spencer, but shook her head. 

He was lying a little bit. It was hard to get a proper amount of sleep when he was a sophomore now and he was so small and always pushed around and laughed at and his mother never noticed and his father was gone and it was all too much. He was left to not only try to be a valedictorian, but his mother's primary caregiver, rather than the other way around which he was sure was the court's intention but if he said that, he'd have been taken away and he didn't want that, he didn't need that. It could be hard to sleep.

"Then why are you drinking that stuff? It'll stunt your growth, keep you that skinny forever." Spencer rolled his eyes, shaking his head to banish the hair - already getting too long again- from right in front of them. He was the smallest in his school and that slowly bothered him less and less. In fact, when faced with a group of other ten year-olds, he felt lost, no longer the smallest or most different. Spencer learned that he preferred to be smaller than everyone around him.

He wouldn't mind always being so skinny.

* * *

Spencer Reid began to accept that he may have had a problem with food his senior year. He was almost twelve and yes, perhaps, he was underweight. His hair was shaggy and he actually really liked the 'edgy genius' look that the sweater vest and glasses give the tall skinny kid with long hair. He had ended up actually making friends with a couple of freshmen that year and though they were only two years older than him, compared to them he was so, so small. The others could pick him up if they wanted (and if he didn't flinch and yelp every time they did) and his entire figure disappeared when he borrowed their jackets for walks home. Finally, he began to notice that he didn't eat as often as they did, as much as they did. In nutrition, he found out that biologically, he was starving. 

Spencer had a consistent meal plan, typically no breakfast or lunch and whatever his mother cooked him or he cooked his mother for dinner. It wasn't as though he had consciously developed this routine, but he stuck to it. Once he gets a routine, Spencer doesn't look at the idea of breaking it. The idea of stopping a repetitive motion that had become such a staple to his day to day was more daunting than something as trivial as being seen as 'too skinny', it was something not even the possibility of starvation could outweigh. 

It was also the year that he began to notice that he wasn't quite as alright as he had originally believed. Everything that was different about him physically was originally chalked up to his size and his age compared to his peers, but even compared to the freshmen, he was sick. 

Eventually, the tween noticed that he was tired a lot more than the others, coffee and determination being all that kept him awake, his shaking hands and unstable frame had just been things he was used to. His mother had decided that it was because of the caffeine, so he did too. It was becoming increasingly obvious, though, that he was actually sick. That something was wrong with him. This didn't mean that the boy would ever admit what that was.

* * *

Spencer Reid was fourteen when he accepted that he had an eating disorder. 

Every sign pointed to it and it was only a matter of time before he accepted it. Any and all of his behaviors around food were consistent with somebody trying to maintain an unhealthy diet and the anxiety that has developed around food was undeniable, it would be clear to some that he suffers from anorexia nervosa had they looked at his interaction, and that was honestly frightening to him. He didn't like the idea of stopping and that made everything seem more real. 

Reality set in one Saturday while he was sipping his coffee for lunch, Spencer ran a hand through his dry, unhealthy hair, only catching it once or twice on his cracking fingernails. There were deep bags under the boy's eyes and there was no way he could pretend that it what he was doing was healthy anymore. 

Even if he accepted it though, that didn't mean that he was willing to change.

He continued sipping his coffee, wondering what he would make for his mother to eat for lunch. Perhaps a sandwich. 

He continued sipping his coffee.

* * *

 

Spencer Reid was fifteen when his mother was fed up with his apparent habit.

"You've gotta drink less caffeine, Spencer," Diana said. "That's why you're so skinny."

He just looked down and nodded.

Sure, just the caffeine.

The dangerous drug that his mother was trying to keep him from; destructive and scary and bad for you. Of course Spencer  _was_ addicted to caffeine, but he also had a much worse, much deadlier addiction.

By now, Spencer was too skinny by anybody's means. His body was lanky and angular, far too much longer than wide, arms alien with skin handing down because there's hardly anything to connect to it. He couldn't stop himself, couldn't do anything but control , controlling his intake, controlling his outtake, controlling his body, controlling his interaction. Eventually his only hope for control was spiraling out of his control. All he could focus on was staying small, staying broken. All he had to show for the frustration he felt when he ate was how skinny he'd get when he didn't. 

He had attempted to recover once, when he was 13, but it ended in a relapse worse than anything he'd experienced before. A worse tangle of guilt and anger and frustration and nonono than he'd ever known. 

After that, he'd just decided that he'd rather starve than get help.

He didn't deserve it after he'd failed anyways. He wasn't what mattered. What mattered was taking care of his mother and applying for college and taking care of things that were probably too much for a teenager to take on alone but that didn't matter either. 

* * *

 Spencer Reid was eighteen when he finally decided to give recovery another go. 

He wanted to be in the FBI, which meant he needed to be in his best physical and psychological state he possibly could be in, and maybe an eating disorder was something he need to leave behind, next to his mother and everything else he held close. The disorder itself had developed to a point where he had to paint his nails (black, to remain masculine) in order to hide their obvious blue tint and he had to cut his hair short just to keep it from snapping. Enough was enough, he supposed.

This time though, it stuck. He worked his intake up bit by bit, got himself through college, got into the FBI and got himself up to a healthy weight while he was at it. During which he kept up his caffeine addiction, but that's not the point. Despite some blips in the recovery process, a couple of hard cases that made him need to hold on to anything he could control. 

Other than that, Spencer's resolve stayed strong. Kept himself healthy, kept focus on his job, on his friends, on maintaining his life an happiness rather than his weight. As the youngest in the BAU, he was still somewhat smaller than his teammates, but that wasn't anything that he focused on. Nothing that he thought of more than in passing, remnants of his past the same his irrational anger when faced with a child or a disabled victim or unsub. 

Things finally started to look up for a little bit.

* * *

Spencer Reid was 24 when he relapsed hard. 

Tobias Hankel reminded him that there was so much that could go wrong, so much could happen, and he could control so little of it. This point was only hammered home by his newfound enjoyment of Dilaudid, straddling the line of dependence. (He knew he was well beyond that line, but needed to at least pretend.)

It wasn't as though he  _wanted_ to go back to it, he just couldn't stop. Once he started again, something in his brain kicked in that he needed to keep going, lose more weight, eat less, work harder. Spencer distracted himself with anything he could find to pretend he wasn't hungry, wasn't withdrawn, was okay and in control. Even though, by now, it's a well known fact that anorexia didn't grant him anything close to control. It was impossible to ignore how he craved the illusion of it.

It didn't hurt that the emptier his stomach, the faster he'd feel the high. 

It wasn't until the sixth and seventh steps of his twelve that Spencer decided to cut away his disordered thoughts and behaviors. Even then, re-recovery was another form of Hell. Knowing how well and happy he was actually able to be around food, even if not completely comfortable, and then he fell back to becoming powerless against it once again. It was painful and frustrating and one of the few things he wouldn't write to his mother. Or tell his teammates. 

The victory of re-recovery was a silent one, but very satisfying. 

Perhaps Morgan read it in his body language because he brought a cup of victory coffee, they sipped together as they talked about the last case, taking Spence's mind off of everything. Even the approximate 48 calories of the sugar in his mug.

* * *

Spencer Reid was 29 when one of his closest friends supposedly died.

For months, he cried at JJ's house, he spoke openly, even sharing his eating disorder and first relapse. They both knew and denied the idea of being in the middle of a second one. It was so terrifying to think that anyone could be so easily taken away. Eventually, Spencer thought of going back to Dilaudid to ease the pain, but decided that perhaps he could go back to another addiction. Not caffeine, that's always been there, but the one possibly deadlier than drugs. Approximately every 62 minutes somebody dies from direct results of an eating disorder, but it wasn't as though he particularly cared. He just wanted to be in control of something, if not his cravings and his mourning and his pain. Everything to do with his life was falling apart and he wanted, no  _needed_ to feel like something was his and only his.

It hurt to find out Emily was alive, not only because JJ allowed him to mourn, but it felt almost as if JJ had allowed him to starve himslef in the name of something false. He knew she didn't know about his relapse, but he also knew that he was prone to it. JJ was his best friend and she betrayed him. 

It took a while to get over JJ's betrayal, and even longer to answer Emily's inquiries as to if he was okay. To try and make up for the deceit, JJ, Aaron, and Emily all tried to get him help. This time, his anorexia didn't completely go away, but it was manageable. A few bursts of  _starve purge starve starve_ would occasionally come up but things were getting better, things were looking up.

* * *

 

Spencer Reid was 30 during his third relapse.

Maeve was the love of his short life, though he likely would be able to meet somebody else, maybe even fall for them, they'd never be his first love. It tore him apart to remember that he'd never hear her voice again, never make her laugh again, and there would never be anything he could do about it. She was gone, and he wouldn't have been too angry to follow.

The two weeks he shut himself in were filled with almost complete starvation, not caring or moving. It took the support and love of his friends helped him to rejoin the team, but his anorexia stayed and worked full force, never far from his mind. He couldn't stay as focused, sometimes he felt as though he were drowning, but he stayed with his friends.

This continued for months, a routine developing once again, turning him back into the helpless twelve year old he was at the start of all this. Young and angry with the world and tired of everything his brain runs through itself.

Angry with the world, the only thing Spencer could do was take it out on himself. Wasting away just as much on the outside as well as the inside. 

Not as easy as he had thought, at least not on a team full of profilers. 

After a long, harrowing talk with JJ, as well as a lot of hugs from his beloved godson, Spencer Reid decided to give recovery yet another go. 

Tearfully on his bathroom floor, Spencer prayed for it to stick this time.

 

 


End file.
